Installation of the gas cylinders completed

11 April 1915

Six days after starting preparations to install gas cylinders (codenamed “F-Batteries”)
in the alternative trial sector Oberst Peterson and his special
pioneer units had dug 5,730 gas cylinders into position. By night and
in bad weather the canisters had been dragged into the front line trenches on
a frontage of 6 kilometres. The front of the attack was to start a few hundred
metres east of Langemarck and continue to the Yser
canal at Steenstraat.

The gas cylinders were installed in groups of twenty cylinders per “battery”. In
total 180,000 kilograms of chlorine were to be released here and the flow of
gas was to last five minutes. A constant danger to the gas pioneers was that
enemy artillery shells might smash the cylinders and release the gas. This would
not only injure the German troops nearby but it would probably alert the enemy
to what was being prepared.

In order to protect the men from the chlorine gas a protective liquid (“Schutzflüssigkeit”)
was distributed to the troops. It was a 30% sodium sulphate solution.(1) It
was to be poured onto a pad of cotton waste and pressed against the mouth and
nose. The men called the mouth pad a “Riechpäckchen”. According
to the regimental history of 210. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment this
primitive gas mask was sufficient at the time because the chlorine gas tended
to blow away quickly across open ground.

However, for several days after 11th April when the cylinders were ready to be
used the wind did not blow in the right direction here either.